"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future"........
John F. Kennedy

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Obama on troop surge: 'We must keep the pressure on al-Qaida'

by Mark Silva and updated again at 9:05 pm ESTPresident Barack Obama, swiftly deploying an added 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, told a national television audience tonight that Americans "have no interest in fighting an endless war'' and promised to begin withdrawing forces from the embattled nation in July 2011.The surge of forces which Obama has ordered will raise the U.S. commitment to 98,000 troops by next summer, at an estimated added cost of about $30 billion a year. The pace of the subsequent draw-down, however, remains uncertain - depending on "conditions on the ground.''Both the initial military boost and announced start of a planned withdrawal are intended to weaken and ultimately defeat the Taliban and to train Afghan security forces, administration officials say.Their goal, the president said, is "to seize the initiative,'' finally, in a war that started on Sept. 11, 2001, and is not going well after eight years, build Afghanistan's capacity to secure itself and then allow for "a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan.''

"And this is the cause of my life -- new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American -- north, south, east, west, young, old -- will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege. "Ted Kennedy